In France, at the Lyon public library, I was surprised to bump into so many romans fleuves, whatever those are. They were notable on the shelf because these long series of novels are now published in monumental, highly visible, omnibus editions. The library assumes that you want to take all 2,400 or 4,800 pages homes at once for some reason. I wish I had noted some of the authors, aside from Proust and Romain Rolland and Roger Martin du Gard. There were so many others. French literature went through a roman fleuve craze.
Rolland and Martin du Gard both won Nobel Prizes but the latter’s
Les Thibault (1922-40, 8 vols) never caught on in English and the former’s
Jean-Christophe (1904-12, 10 vols) has withered. I remember that thirty years ago the big,
highly visible, Modern Library omnibus of Jean-Christophe was in every
used bookstore. I haven’t seen one for a
while. Sometimes literature seems to
follow an ecological model, where the most successful species of the type
(Proust) starves its competitors out of its ecological niche. In France these books still have readers; the
niche is clearly more resource-rich.
The winner in British literature has been Anthony Powell’s A
Dance to the Music of Time (1951-75, 12 vols), although this is a matter of
definition, I know. I take the family
saga as a different species. U.S.
authors seem to prefer to occasionally revisit a character over time, as in
John Updike’s Rabbit books (1960-90, a mere 4 vols), rather than
intentionally plan out a long series. But
the river still flows so what is the difference, really? I guess I do take intentionality as part of
the difference, although I remind myself that In Search of Lost Time (1913-1927,
7 vols) was intended to be (1913-15, 3 vols) and in fact would have been if the
war had not interrupted publication giving Proust years to “revise” his novel.
And come to think of it, I can only think of two more
British romans fleuves, Edward St. Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose books
(1992-2012, 5 vols) and A. N. Wilson’s Lampitt Chronicles (1988-96, 5
vols). I’ve actually read that last
one. I had a little A. N. Wilson phase
thirty years ago for some reason. No, I
know the reason, I read a good review of his novels.
I read a good review of the University of Chicago reissue of
A Dance to the Music of Time which I have remembered ever since – I have
never forgotten that the most prominent recurring character is named “Widmerpool”
– although for some reason it did not inspire me to read the novels.
But now I have read some of the Dance novels, the
first four, which are:
A Question of Upbringing (1951)
A Buyer’s Market (1952)
The Acceptance World (1955)
At Lady Molly’s (1957)
It took me a while but now I imagine I can at least write
down some notes on Powell’s books. Not
that there is any hint of that in this preface.
Perhaps in the next post. I will
tack on the Nicholas Poussin painting that, along with Proust, inspired Powell,
just to add a little color.
Dorothy Richardson would like a word with you about the British roman fleuve!
ReplyDeleteYes, Dorothy Richardson, right. I've even read half of those, by page count. She is an interesting example of my ecological niche idea. Her books have had trouble in several niches, Modernism most obviously, elbowed out by Woolf and Joyce.
ReplyDeleteBrad Bigelow, Mr. Neglected Books, has been hosting this book-a-month readalong of Anthony Powell, with Zoom meetings that just do not work for me. The publisher he runs will be issuing new editions of Richardson's Pilgrimage soon - this year I think? So, another chance.
Do you read all your books in paperback? Share your bookshelf clicks some day?
ReplyDeleteAubrey/Maturin?
ReplyDeletePlausible, yes. It depends on how much the intention matters. Some series, the ones that allow the protagonists to change over time, become a de facto roman fleuve.
ReplyDeleteSo Sherlock Holmes and Horatio Hornblower books, no, but Master and Commander and Ian Rankin's Rebus and K.C. Constantine's Mario Balzic, yes, why not.
I need to finish these dang Powell posts.
Does the Forsyte Saga play into this? I'm not up on Powell criticism, but anthonypowell.org claims that Galsworthy was the source for St John Clarke and that Powell didn't like him as a novelist: https://www.anthonypowell.org/dance-sources
ReplyDeleteMy impression of his work was always that it was more akin to Balzac or Faulkner than a roman fleuve proper. I've never read Galsworthy, and I can't imagine I'm likely to any time soon, though probably you have!
The Balzic books are good – I stumbled into him through the Godine detective series, which doesn't seem like it ran that long, and if I'm remembering correctly only included him and Sciascia?
Galsworthy was writing a different beast for different reasons. I would call it a family saga. The issue of intentionality is there, too. The first novel, A Man of Property (1906), was written as a single novel, and Galsworthy did not think of it as part of a "saga" of any kind for another 14 years.
ReplyDeletePlus things do not really "flow" but is rather interrupted by a specific action that has repercussions for the rest of the series.
Curiously, one piece of the series, the novella "Awakening" (1920), is quite Proustian, although Galsworthy is interested in the childhood portion of Swann's Way which Powell does not seem to care about at all.
The big trouble with the Balzic novels is trying to convince someone to read a series that really gets good at book 8 or 9.